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123 lines
5.3 KiB
Plaintext
123 lines
5.3 KiB
Plaintext
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\s5
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\c 9
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\q
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\v 1 "I wish that my head could produce as many tears as water from a spring, and that my eyes were like a fountain of tears,
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\q since I cry night and day for all of my people who have been killed by their enemies.
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\q
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\v 2 I wish that I could leave my people and forget them, and go and live in a shack in the desert,
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\q because they have not remained faithful to Yahweh; they are a mob of people who deceive others.
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\q
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\v 3 They use their tongues to tell lies just as people shoot arrows with bows.
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\q They are powerful, but not because they are faithful, but they go about doing wicked things. "They do not know me," Yahweh says.
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\s5
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\q
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\v 4 Do not trust your neighbors and even your brothers! They all are as deceitful as Jacob was.
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\q They slander each other and tell lies about each other.
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\q
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\v 5 They deceive their friends and never tell the truth.
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\q They lie continually and, because of that, they have become skilled liars; they do one oppressive deed after another until they grow tired from sinning so much.
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\q
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\v 6 Jeremiah, everyone living around you is a deceiver. Not one of them will admit that I am God.
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\s5
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\q
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\v 7 Therefore I, Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, say this:
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\q Listen carefully to what I say: I will test my people, like a metalworker puts metal in a hot fire to completely burn out the impure bits.
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\q Because of all the evil things that my people have done, there is absolutely nothing else that I can do.
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\q
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\v 8 What they say injures people like poisoned arrows do.
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\q They say to their neighbors, 'I hope things will go well for you,' while they are planning to kill them.
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\q
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\v 9 Should I not punish them for doing that?
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\q Yes, I should certainly get revenge on the people of a nation that does things like that!"
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\s5
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\q
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\v 10 So, I will weep and wail for the people who live in the mountains and in the pastures,
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\q because those areas will be desolate, and no one will live there.
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\q There will be no cattle there to call to each other,
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\q and all the birds and wild animals will have fled to other places.
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\b
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\q
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\v 11 Yahweh also says, "I will cause Jerusalem to become a heap of ruins,
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\q and only jackals will live there.
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\q I will destroy the towns of Judah, with the result that they will be completely deserted;
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\q no people will live there."
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\q
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\v 12 I said, "Only people who are very wise can understand these things.
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\q Only those who have been taught by Yahweh can explain these things to others.
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\q The wise people are the only ones who can explain why the land will be completely ruined
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\q with the result that everyone will be afraid to travel through it."
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\s5
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\p
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\v 13 Yahweh replied, "These things will happen because my people have rejected my laws which I gave to them;
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they have not obeyed me or my instructions.
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\v 14 Instead, they have stubbornly done the things that they wanted in their inner beings to do.
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They have worshiped the idols that represent the god Baal,
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which is what their ancestors did.
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\s5
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\v 15 So now listen to what I, Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, the God of the Israelites, say:
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What I will do will be like giving these people bitter things to eat and poison to drink:
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\v 16 I will scatter them to many nations which neither they nor their ancestors have known anything about;
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I will enable their enemies to strike them with swords until I have destroyed them."
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\s5
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\q
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\v 17 This is what Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, says:
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\q "Think about what is happening,
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\q then summon those women who mourn when someone has died.
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\q
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\v 18 Tell them to come quickly and start to wail,
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\q with the result that tears will stream down from your eyes.
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\s5
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\q
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\v 19 Listen to the people of Jerusalem calling out, saying,
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\q 'We have been ruined!
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\q We have experienced a terrible disaster!
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\q Now we are very ashamed,
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\q because our houses have been destroyed by our enemies, and we are being forced to leave our land.'
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\q
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\v 20 You women, listen to what Yahweh says.
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\q Pay attention to his words.
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\q Teach your daughters to wail.
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\q Teach each other how to sing funeral songs.
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\s5
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\q
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\v 21 You must learn to sing funeral songs because people will be dying in your houses and in palaces.
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\q There will be no more children playing in the streets,
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\q there will be no more young men gathering in the city squares.
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\q
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\v 22 There will be corpses scattered across the fields like dung;
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\q their dead bodies will lie there like grain that has been cut by reapers,
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\q and there will be no one still alive to bury them.
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\s5
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\q
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\v 23 Yahweh says this:
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\q "Wise men should not boast about their being wise,
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\q strong men should not boast about their being strong;
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\q and rich people should not boast about their being rich.
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\q
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\v 24 Instead, those who want to boast should boast about their knowing me
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\q and about understanding that I am Yahweh,
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\q that I am kind and just and righteous,
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\q that I faithfully love people,
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\q and that I am delighted with people who act that way.
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\s5
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\p
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\v 25-26 There will be a time when I will punish all those people who have changed their bodies by circumcising them but who have not changed their inner beings: the Egyptian, the Moab, of Edom, and of the Ammon people groups, all those who live close to desert areas far from Judah. I will even punish the people of Israel because they are only circumcised on the outside, and physically, and not on the inside, in their inner self."
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